So here we have a bloke sitting in his tractor minding his own business and enjoying a fag when along comes a Brownshirt and slaps a fine on him for smoking.

We will ignore the fact that [as far as I am aware] most if not all tractors are single person vehicles. We will ignore the fact that if he was parked at the side of the road and therefore technically he wasn't using it for business purposes. We will ignore the fact that £1,000 is grossly disproportionate as a fine. We will ignore the fact that this "crime" was harming precisely no one.

What we can't ignore is the depths to which this whole Anti-Smoker purge has sunk.

A cash strapped council which can't afford to cut back roadside hedges is able to afford a "tobacco control officer" [or more than one?] who is presumably being paid at least the minimum wage. The whole concept of a "tobacco control officer" is wrong – a person employed on a full time basis to go around snooping on people to see if they are enjoying a surreptitious fag?

Can anyone give me one good reason why I shouldn't compare the Anti-Smoker campaign with the early days of Hitler's campaign against the Jews?

In each case, a political ideology achieved almost religious like fervour and hatred. In each case there is no basis for this hatred. In each case the public are actively encouraged to vilify and demonise the minority. In each case the public are encouraged to spy on their neighbour and report them to the "authorities" in the event of some imaginary transgression. In each case the government passes tighter and tighter restrictions in order to eradicate this imagined evil and employs spies to ensure that the minority group toes the line, and applies disproportionate punishment in the event of a transgression. Children are being indoctrinated into an ideology before they are mature enough to make their own judgements.

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Hitler is alive and well — 45 Comments

The Nazi comparison is as good as any though anti-smokers would argue that Jews had no choice. Regardless, the ban in workplaces was clearly designed to punish rather than protect. Hitler would have been proud.

Technically I suppose the Jews could have converted to something else?

That aside, the old "health" argument has long since been disproved as there is no health reason whatsoever for banning smoking in the open air. And if health is the reason, why are they trying their best to ban electrofags?

Nah! This is plain simple hatred of a minority group, and they will twist the knife whenever they can, simply because they can.

Yes, Prog, that’s often given as the justification. But, in reality, what people are saying with that argument is that this kind of bullying and persecution is (in their view) justified, provided those being bullied have the means to capitulate to their persecutors and do as they are told. This is tantamount to saying that persecution, in and of itself, is just fine and dandy.

State-authorised and supported bullying against any group – whether they have the means to “do as they are told” or not – is immoral, unfair and plain wrong. Always. It is every bit as wrong against smokers (or drinkers, or fat people, or people who play golf, or people who wear green ties) as it was against Jews (or black people, or gay people, or disabled people). Because it’s wrong in principle.

No wonder we have an explosion of bullying in schools, workplaces and on the Internet when our “leaders” are giving out such tacit (and not-so-tacit) support to the activity.

There is no reason, in fact, to ban smoking indoors, either, apart from the fact that some people might not like the smell. But you could say the same about perfume. My ex-wife used to react very badly to the over-application of certain perfumes, and several times we had to leave a restaurant mid-meal because she was about to throw up. I didn't, however, lobby parliament to ban perfume because I didn't like it. Nor did I try to create the lie that 'second-hand' perfume was harmful to others.

I am still puzzled how smoking, considered normal just 10 years ago has become the cause of all illness and death. Given the loss of tax revenue and the assumption that smokers die earlier, less pension and long term care, not that I have seen any evidence for that among my own family and friends, you would think they would encourage it.

If people had been dropping dead in the streets for no apparent reason and they suddenly discovered cigarettes were the cause, I could understand it. As it stands, none of it makes any sense whatsoever.

We live in countries whose laws are made, interpreted, and enforced by gibbering idiots backed up the malice and rancour of the neo-prohibitionists whose greatest fear is that someone, somewhere, is enjoying doing something the NPs don't want them to.

It’s America that’s popularized antismoking insanity – again, and which other countries are following suit. The problem with Americans is that they are clueless to even their own recent history. America has a terrible history with this sort of “health” fanaticism/zealotry/extremism or “clean living” hysteria – including antismoking – that goes back more than a century.

Antismoking is not new. It has a long, sordid, at times very violent, 400+ year history, much of it predating even the pretense of a scientific basis or the more recent concoction of secondhand smoke “danger”. Antismoking crusades typically run on inflammatory propaganda, i.e., lies, in order to get law-makers to institute bans. Statistics and causal attribution galore are conjured. The current antismoking rhetoric has all been heard before. All it produces is irrational fear and hatred, discord, enmity, animosity, social division, oppression, and bigotry. When supported by the State, zealots seriously mess with people’s minds on a mass scale.

For a brief history of antismoking, see:

“Cigarette Wars: The ‘Triumph’ of the Little White Slaver” (1998) by Cassandra Tate. Google the following combination – “the endless war on tobacco” “seattletimes” – which should bring up a summary article of the book at the Seattle Times.

Gordon L. Dillow (1981), “Thank You for Not Smoking” [The Hundred-Year War Against the Cigarette]

There were antismoking crusades long before the large tobacco companies came on the scene. There were antismoking crusades long before the mass-produced cigarette. There were antismoking crusades long before movies and mass media. There were antismoking crusades long before attempts, however bastardized, at scientific investigation of smoking. There were antismoking crusades long before the recent concoction of secondhand smoke “danger” [The term “passive smoking”, without basis, was coined during the N#zi era].

The common theme over those 400+ years is the extent to which rabid antismokers will lie to rationalize their incoherent hatred of smoke/smokers/smoking. Hostility, violence, cruelty, bigotry, neuroses, megalomania, pathological lying, a “god complex” – antismoking has it all. There’s more than ample evidence over the last few centuries that the rabid antismoking mentality (misocapny) is a significant mental disorder. Yet here we are again.

Appease antismokers (prohibitionists) with State support and their claims become progressively more absurd and hysterical, and their demands more draconian and inhumane.

One good reason being that this comparison is disgusting. We have cretinic rules enforced by dumb officials and resulting in fines on one side – and racial hatred resulting in injustice, violence and murder on the other.

Firstly, the Nazis also had a war on tobacco. However, there are also a number of important similarities between denormalization of the Jews and current denormalization of smokers. You’re correct. There isn’t the wholesale murder of smokers but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something tragically astray.

Long before the genocide, Jews underwent a denormalization assault that made the eventual genocide possible. They were depicted by officialdom as less than human, as burdens to society, and disease carriers/spreaders. They were banned from parks and entranceways lest they contaminate the superior Aryans. The denormalization of smokers is very similar. Smokers/smoking have been depicted as reckless “addicts”, as diseased and disease spreaders (through secondhand smoke). They have been banned from more and more places, firstly from the indoors and more recently from more and more outdoor areas such as parks, beaches, entranceways lest they contaminate and offend superior nonsmokers. They are depicted as a burden to society and there are now a growing number of employment bans on smokers, denial of medical treatment, denial of housing (even the elderly). In the UK, smokers are banned from fostering/adoption. There are now instances of attacks, even murder, solely for the reason that a person was smoking.

Some of the markers of denormalization that have been pounded into the public by State-supported/funded campaigns over the last few decades:

Smokers as malodourous
Smokers as litterers
Smokers as unattractive and undesirable housemates
Smokers as undereducated and a social underclass
Smokers as excessive users of public health services
Smokers as employer liabilities http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/17/1/25

If you spend even a little time on comments boards on smoke-related articles, one thing that quickly comes to the fore is the sheer hatred directed at smokers. A particular author has taken a selection of antismoking comments gathered from comments boards over the last few years that just seethe with hatred:

And you both still insist that those separate cases of random violence (yes, random) are comparable with the nazi death machine? Seriously? Don't you see that you are actually doing what I said: undermining your own cause? It's a bit difficult to understand for me.

Mind you, I'm a smoker. I find fining a farmer having a puff in his own tractor beyond ridiculous. But when I hear this anti smoking campaign = holocaust bullshit, my blood boils. So how do you think you can ever make a non-smoking public listen to whatever you have to say if you put them off at the very start?

I never mentioned the Holocaust. What I am saying is the treatment of smokers bears resemblance to the early days of the Nazi pogrom against the Jews. I'm damned sure in the pre-Holocaust days there were random acts of violence against Jews too.

“Can you show me an example of violence against smokers? Stupid laws, ridiculous fines, unnecessary ostracism – yes, but show me an example of violence.”

You demanded just one example of violence against smokers. You were provided with more than that. Yet you still go on with your ranting and raving. I haven’t likened contemporary antismoking with genocide in the Nazi era. I made that clear in my comment. I have provided for you the standard denormaliztion intent/process which is exactly the same in both cases. We now have instances of people being assaulted/killed solely because they were smoking. Until recently such a thing was unheard of. It’s a recent phenomenon. What’s produced it? Do you think there’s any sort of serious problem in the non-genocidal sense?

Sorry, Jed, you are daft. The examples cited above weren’t random – read the headlines. They were people specifically targeted because they were smoking/smokers. I’m getting the strong feeling that you’re actually an antismoker or, worse still, an antismoking smoker.

Christ. I read the headlines and even understood them! Of course they were targeted because they were smoking and still those were random acts of violence. On the planet with 7 billion people you will have a lot of them. You will have people murdering each other for all sorts of reasons, for which people shouldn't be murdering each other. It doesn't mean, that each of those cases is a sign of a dangerous new trend.

I couldn't care too much how you classify me, you know? I'm certainly not anti-smoking though.

I was going to mention Godwin's Law, as well as the Nazi anti-smoker movement, or whatever you'd call it, but I see you've already gotten there. I will say, though, that of course Hitler wasn't the first anti-tobacco fanatic. Really, there's little original about him, except he was the first to put twentieth century technologies to that sort of use.
We have no record of pre-Columbian anti-tobacco fanatics that I'm aware of, so the distinction of being the first may belong to King James I. He was perhaps the first to ban indoor smoking, though today's anti-smoker crowd seem to have a fairly ahistorical worldview, so I doubt they borrowed from either King James, or Hitler. Really, people have been banning the enjoyments and pleasures of others for as long as recorded history.

No – Godwins Law does not apply here. Godwins applies to LONG discussions that will always end with Hitler or Nazism. Hitler was in the title of the post! The question was a rhetorical one – that Tobacco Control, by their actions, can be likened to the persecution of a minority group – Jews in Germany – as Hitler came to power. Where is Godwin ffs? The point of the post should be seriously scary to a thinking person.

How is anyone undermining their own cause? Confused at this point…are you pro Anti Tobacco, or not?

I know, shouldn't have brought Godwin into that – it was a joke, but if no one gets it as one, it means it was a crappy joke.

I'm neither pro or anti tobacco, or pro anti tobacco. I'm a smoker. I think smoking ban in pubs and restaurants is good. I think penalizing somebody for smoking in his own tractor is beyond ridiculous. Where does it place me?

I understand the comparison Grandad makes in his post, 'that Tobacco Control, by their actions, can be likened to the persecution of a minority group – Jews in Germany' and I find it blown out of proportion to the point of being ridiculous. As such, I think using this argument will bring more harm than good to your own cause. I hope I'm being clearer now.

Well, I'm willing to bet you are a young person who has grown up in a smoking-repressive age, believing what Tobacco Control have told you, that smoking is vile. You probably sort of hate yourself for smoking. But some of us here are probably "oldies" – I'm 70 and a child of the sixties when smoking was acceptable, and most people did it. I have been left shocked at how Tobacco Control has grown into a massive industry that has consumed trillions, to bully, badger, persecute and lie to smokers to get them to stop smoking. The intrusion into people's personal lifestyles is unimaginable to a younger person because they do not know what it was like before the repression. The interesting thing is how the deceit of Tobacco Control and their co-operation with Big Pharma, is being exposed by their antics against vaping, as an ideology rather than any concern for the health of society. I suspect you have never met an ideology before and have no idea how dangerous having one can be. We live in interesting times!

These are not tobacco control officers, these are smoker control officers.

There are no anti-smoking, anti-tobacco, anti-tobacco company fanatics – they are all anti-smoker, for without smokers there is no smoking, tobacco or tobacco companies. The target of the 'antis' persecution is of people who enjoy consuming a particular legal product and most, if not all, of the persecutors are funded by the taxpayer, including tobacco taxpayers, who are forced to pay for their own persecution.